I once went to see a clairvoyant with a friend. She told me I had an old soul. That is the only thing she said that was true. Some days I feel like I was born in the wrong decade, but perhaps that is just what getting older feels like. Whatever it is, I feel like my body is catching up to my soul.

My tastes and interests have always been heavily influenced by my parents – from what I like to eat to what I watch on film and television, to the music I listen to and books I read.  When I was a little girl (and when there was only one television set in the house!), I loved watching the old classic movies they would show on weekends. One of my favourite memories was of all the swashbuckling action: Stewart Granger in Scaramouche swinging from theatre balcony to stage, Danny Kaye under hypnosis in The Court Jester extinguishing candles with a flick of his sword, and I can never forgetting Richard Chamberlain in The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, to name a few.

Back then, my parents mustn’t have seen me waving an imaginary sword around, jumping from couch to floor and pretending I was fighting off some bad guys. I was no Errol Flynn but I wanted to be. I was not born to be a damsel-in-distress waiting for a man to come rescue me from the pirates. I was going to be the one to swash the enemy’s buckler!

Continue reading →